There is no shortage of critics out there. It used to be, that as a musician, you had to worry about what music critics and magazines would say about about your art. A bad review from one of these could make even the most seasoned artist extremely self conscious. Things are different now.
Have you ever been to a movie? Let me rephrase that. Have you ever watched a preview for a movie in the theater, and in the silence after the preview was over, heard whispers saying things like, "Whoa, that looks terrible!"? Watching previews in a theater gives everyone the chance to be a movie critic. We all turn to our friends and give each preview our thumbs up or down. So, now they've installed these buttons on just about every website to let you give your thumbs up or down on whatever you are looking at. You can anonymously give your own "Booooo!!!" to everything you see.
And people LOVE this button.
You can be sure that every video you post online, will get a hand full of "dislikes"- no matter what the video is. To prove my point, here's a screen shot of a video of a cute kitten:
Just look below the 84,656. Five "dislikes". I want you to remember this every time you face any sort of critique online. There's a good chance that if someone is going to hit the "dislike" button for a cute kitten, they will hit it for just about anything. If you are feeling self conscious, just read and re-read this post. Thanks for reading.
Jeremy
(124 people "booed" this)
(6,108 people "booed" this)
Great advice! Thanks for sharing. I feel like everyone is becoming more and more critical these days with the power of anonymous comments. Very frustrating when it's not constructive.
Posted by: Rachel | July 27, 2011 at 11:57 AM
I wish I could thumbs up this post.
Posted by: Courtney | July 27, 2011 at 12:01 PM
I'm a fan of Boo on Facebook!
Posted by: Tricia | July 27, 2011 at 12:02 PM
I was the one who disliked all of those videos.
Posted by: Jason Poe | July 27, 2011 at 12:27 PM
Two kinds of people, ones who create and the others just complain.
Posted by: LoFiDad | July 27, 2011 at 04:26 PM
that kid has some serious ukulele skills
Posted by: Chelsea | July 27, 2011 at 09:39 PM
this post is great. i couldn't agree more. the other day my husband said, "we live in THEE most critical generation of all time!! everyone has mastered the art of everything." thank you for your posts, keep em' coming!
Posted by: Katie | July 28, 2011 at 03:47 PM
its so true! people dislike to most odd things! Sometimes I think people dislike just to dislike...its so lame!!
not that i'm a fan of Rebecca Blacks "Friday" song, but some of the things people were saying were unbelievably mean! People feel like they are so anonymous but its still hurtful and wrong!
Posted by: Brea Marie | August 01, 2011 at 12:10 AM
I think if everyone in the world rated everything that exists, everything would be a perfect 2.5 out of 5. Except for kittens, which would be a 2.6 and Harry Connick Jr. albums, which would end up being a solid 1.7; if we're lucky and there are no recounts.
Posted by: Philip Bowles | August 31, 2011 at 11:49 AM